St Clair Half Marathon - Blenheim - 8th May, 2010

I had booked for this event ages ago - back in November.  I had so looked forward to it, then in January I hurt my ankle badly.  Thought I still had plenty of time, but the foot isn't getting better so very disappointed, I had to pull out a few weeks ago. 

However, the rest of the group were in.  From Blenheim were the walkers -  Mary, Carol and Kim, and from Auckland the hybrids (run/walk mixture) -  Debbie and Sheila, who came down for the weekend.

Debbie insisted we allow 40 minutes to drive to the event.  She was still in Auckland traffic mode, and no amount of convincing would let her leave any later.  So we left at 8.20am.  We arrived at 8.25am.

So we sat down and waited.  Sheila had a bit of a snooze, and Debbie rearranged her feet.

I didn't need any sleep, and didn't have any feet to rearrange, so I played with my camera.  It was difficult getting a decent photo of them both as they always seemed to pull strange faces.  This one was okay.  I could post up an example of the strange faces, but I value my life.  I was made to promise to delete them too, but I haven't yet so if anyone wants to see them, just drop me a line with $5 and ... no no - I promise - I'll delete them I'll delete them!!!!

Don't they look thrilled to be running/walking 21 km?  In fact, they look happier than most of the others around them.  I promise I didn't spike their breakfasts.

Here are the Be U girls...  from left to right - Mary, Kim and Carol...

 They look pretty excited to walk the 21km as well.  I wonder if they looked this happy at the end of it?  Unfortunately I wasn't there to see - but I did see them this morning (3 days later), and they were still alive.  Just!

 Here they are apparently walking over the start line.  Well - I hope they were, they could have walked the whole 21km like this and I wouldn't have known.  I must find out!

See - look how happy they are compared to the rest of the people around them.  Makes you wonder what they had for breakfast doesn't it?

All five of them did really well.  I didn't stay around as Debbie and Sheila said they would be at least 3 hours.  Sheila rang me 2.5 hours later to say she had finished in 2 hours 25 - she had run all but one km.  Debbie didn't come in much after that, so I went back up to the vineyard straight after Sheila had rung, and we managed to get a photo of Debbie....

Getting closer...

and closer...

And look at that determination.  Not sure if she just wanted to beat 2064, or whether she was just determined to finish.  I suspect it had something to do with 2064.

They looked great at the end, and with a Bacon Buttie to celebrate, they collected their 'free' bottle of St Clair Sauvignon Blanc, and we headed off back home. 

Next year - I'm definitely doing it - my ankle will be better courtesy of the local Orthopaedic Surgeon, so who is joining me for a weekend of running/walking, winetasting, kayaking, eating, bushwalking, and boating?